I've always considered suicide to be a right. Surely if you own your life, you have the right do as you please with it. I was arguing with my mother about this, and she asked me a question I wasn't prepared for. She asked if I would stop her from commiting suicide. And of course, I absolutely would, I love her. But would I be violating her natural rights by doing this? I can't get around this inconsistency.
You already know the answer.
Well, I imagine that she has a clause in her life insurance policy that would void it in cases of suicide.
Of course, a better answer on your part would have been " That's a good point, I guess we'll just have to wait and see how I react."
Maybe you need to distinguish between trying your hardest to convince someone not to kill themselves, and on the other hand trying to force them to live with coercive force.
There's utter apathy on the one hand and there's putting someone in a straight-jacket for the rest of their lives on the other. An appropriate response probably falls somewhere inbetween.
"Maybe you need to distinguish between trying your hardest to convince someone not to kill themselves, and on the other hand trying to force them to live with coercive force.
There's utter apathy on the one hand and there's putting someone in a straight-jacket for the rest of their lives on the other. An appropriate response probably falls somewhere inbetween."
That presumes that the person trying to kill themselves is in their right mind and thus capable of making an informed decision. There should be a separation between acts of suicide borne out of mental illness, and acts of voluntary euthenasia. I for one would absolutely stop a person from commiting suicide unless I knew for sure it was a long planned and informed decision that was not influenced by mental incapacity.
Dave_Chappell:That presumes that the person trying to kill themselves is in their right mind and thus capable of making an informed decision.
"How do you propose to tell the difference between the two (someone in their right mind and someone who is mentally ill)?"
That's a good question. There a some very complicated issues surrounding the scientific validity of the methodology used in the diagnosis of mental illness. I certainly do not have any answers regarding that, but I believe I know my friends and family enough to guage whether or not a suicide attempt was based on a healthy mind or not. Sorry if that isn't a clearcut answer, but life isn't always clearcut.
Dave_Chappell:That's a good question. There a some very complicated issues surrounding the scientific validity of the methodology used in the diagnosis of mental illness. I certainly do not have any answers regarding that, but I believe I know my friends and family enough to guage whether or not a suicide attempt was based on a healthy mind or not. Sorry if that isn't a clearcut answer, but life isn't always clearcut.
How about the case where that person is contractually bound to provide X service or Y product to you over a certain period of time or quantity and has not fulfulled the contract? Shouldn't you be legally allowed to stop that person until you at least settle on a breach of contract agreement?
freeradicals:How about the case where that person is contractually bound to provide X service or Y product to you over a certain period of time or quantity and has not fulfulled the contract? Shouldn't you be legally allowed to stop that person until you at least settle on a breach of contract agreement?
I don't see any issue here that would justify the focible prevention of "suicide."
I see, and that makes sense. I was thinking in the case where there was no prior arrangement/agreement in the case of a breach of contract. If the person still committed suicide then they are intentionally shifting their burden to their heirs which seems wrong, especially if his or her heir wasn't aware that they would be hit with the liability of taking over the contract.
freeradicals:I see, and that makes sense. I was thinking in the case where there was no prior arrangement/agreement in the case of a breach of contract. If the person still committed suicide then they are intentionally shifting their burden to their heirs which seems wrong, especially if his or her heir wasn't aware that they would be hit with the liability of taking over the contract.
For example. If I were sick today, and racked up $20k worth of health care expenses, my heirs aren't required to pay the $20k dollars. They may be required to pay what they are able out of my estate, but no one is going to take their house or their land or their car in order to fulfill that debt. Even in death, those kinds of "bills" are my responsibility.
I don't think that the "heirs" have a prior "property right" in the property of the deceased. I think that the creditors and people the deceased contracted with do. Let's look at an example of land.
I enter into a contract with my neighbor that I would take possession of 5 acres of his property at price X to be paid monthly over 10 years. I die after 5. My heirs then have a choice. Continue/finish paying the debt from the estate or from their own pockets and keep possession of the property or default and forfeit the property. Whether or not the portion of the cost paid up to now by the deceased should be returned to his heirs in exchange for return of the property is a matter for the contract to decide.
Either way, I don't see where there would be a basis for one of my creditors to sue one of my children for the fulfillment of a contract he wasn't a party to.
That presumes that the person trying to kill themselves is in their right mind and thus capable of making an informed decision. There should be a separation between acts of suicide borne out of mental illness, and acts of voluntary euthenasia. I for one wouldabsolutely stop a person from commiting suicide unless I knew for sure it was a long planned and informed decision that was not influenced by mental incapacity.
If someone really wants to kill themselves, they can easily do it without anyone knowing about it until it's too late.
@ladyphoenix, good responses, thank you.
The performance of suicide is not a right, it is a liberty. If you stop your mother from commiting suicide you are violating her liberty.
If my mother was standing on the top of a building I would prevent her from jumping. I would do anything to persuade her not to commit suicide, but if she decides she still want to end her life than I have no right to prevent her from doing it.
Raudsarw,
I think you're getting responses missing the point. It's your mom's right to kill herself, you don't have a right to interfere. That doesn't mean you can't or won't, it just means she is justified and may take steps to take some action against you should you do so. All the discussion about law and rights always implicitly presumes a perfect world where everyone behaves according to the rules. We're still human beings with free choice, and I personally would go to extreme lengths to stop someone I loved from killing themselves under most circumstances. If they have every possibility for a productive happy life in front of them, I'll do what I can to stop them from offing themselves. And I would shoulder the punishment meted out by a court should that end up being what happens. Frankly I don't see that happening, and if it does, I don't see the court being overly harsh on me. All the argument about what rules are or might be doesn't negate or change the fact that you are still an individual with free will, a moral agent, and in the end you have to make your own damn decisions about what what is right and wrong action.
I'm sorry but it is utter tosh to put all human behaviour down to 'choice' and 'freedom' or 'liberty', because life isn't a simplistic economic model in which people act rationally all the time.
Clearly there is a difference between a spontanteous suicide attempt and, for example, a planned, voluntary euthenasia because of a degenerative disease. In this last case the motivation is a rational response to suffering that cannot be prevented, in the first it can be caused by an unclear mind and thus a lack of choice.
If your mother had recently gone through a tough time and was not her usual self - she lost her job, her husband left her, she became ill or whatever - and you walked in on her hanging by her neck but still alive, would you cut her down or just accept that "it's her choice" and leave her up there?
You can talk of abstract concepts such as 'rights' all you like, but what should really guide a pesons actions on an occasion like that is their responsibility to be a protecting child. This is the reason you would instinctively stop her - not only because of a feeling of love, but because as human beings we have a developed ethical component that overules philosophical considerations of what is a persons 'right', and emphasises familial bonds.
Raudsarw: I've always considered suicide to be a right. Surely if you own your life, you have the right do as you please with it. I was arguing with my mother about this, and she asked me a question I wasn't prepared for. She asked if I would stop her from commiting suicide. And of course, I absolutely would, I love her. But would I be violating her natural rights by doing this? I can't get around this inconsistency.
Stopping her from committing suicide might involve coercion, but so what? If she wants to sue you for it, she must stay alive to do so, and if she stays alive, she is tacitly admitting that you did the right thing. Her only way of demonstrating that you wronged her would be to actually commit suicide.
My advice: stop the suicide attempt, by all means!
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under - Mencken
Consumariat - I think you may have read too much into what I said. I am not saying that I would not violate my mother's liberty in that situation, and I am also not saying that in the general case it is always wrong to violate someone's liberty. I was only pointing out that the wrong word had been used by the OP.
You realise that the above makes no logical sense whatsoever?
As I said earlier... If someone really wants to kill themselves, the chances that anyone likely to stop them will be around when they do it are not great. Perhaps we can infer that if someone approaches you stating that they intend suicide, they are in fact making an implicit request that you dissuade them, excepting cases of medical euthenasia, obviously. Perhaps we can extend this principle to a situation in which an inchoate attempt has been made and interrupted - if they really wanted to kill themselves, they could have done it properly, or could plan to do it properly in future for that matter.
These suggested provisos notwithstanding, it is utterly absurd to claim that a person with self-ownership doesn't have a legitimate right to unconditional suicide. Let's not forget that in all of the emotional, knee-jerk examples people are bringing up here, you are envisioning situations in which there exists some kind of personal relationship between the person commiting suicide and the person who is supposedly entitled to prevent them from doing it. Are you suggesting that the person who wants to kill themself does not have the right to sever the relationship they have with you prior to killing themselves?
I'm not just being pedantic here. If someone wants to kill themselves, I'm inclined to feel sorry for them. They are obviously in a lot of pain. I feel an empathetic need to ease that suffering somehow, and convince them to take another course of action. I know that claiming a right to force them to live is not going to ease their suffering. It's going to make them feel worse, and practically speaking might make suicide more likely. It's an excuse to avoid the duty of voluntary convincing that needs to be done. I know that if I don't convince them not to kill themselves, forcing them to live is incredibly cruel.
Where do you go with the belief that you have a right to force people to live? Do you keep someone caged or restrained until they die naturally? Do you ply them with drugs and electroshock torture until they are willing to lie to you and claim that they want to live?
Suicide is a feasible act, it is in everyones power to perform the act. With possible exceptions for the terminally ill.
Suicide is an admissable act, because the fact is that it cannot be made inadmissable. Its inadmissability is unenforceable, and therefore for all intents and purposes meaningless.
Stopping a suicide by any normal means is also both a feasible and an admissable act.
Therefore the only logical conclusion is that 1: Everyone is at liberty to commit suicide 2: Everyone is at liberty to stop someone from commiting suicide.
That is all that needs to be said as far as I can see. Any talk of 'rights' in connection with suicide only serves to confuse the issue and is a misuse of the word.